It Hurts
Rating: M ---- The girl pushes her to the ground. The bully’s silky black hair waves over her shoulder while she chuckles. “Weak little kid, aren’t you?” A blond girl shifts her feet behind her. '' ''“Why are you doing this?” The victim sputters through her thick German accent. The bully laughs again. “Can’t even speak right!” The brunette stood up to be taller than her bully, yet weak and not fluent in English. “Y-you should not!” She shakes her head and blinks her eyes. '' ''The black haired girl pokes the victim’s bruises and walks on home. “I’d better being goin’ now.” She cackled and said, “My non-mutt parents will be worried about me!” The young German leans on the wall, wishing she had a friend to carry her broken ass home. The blond shifts her feet again and doesn’t follow the bully. “Um…” The other girl starts. “…are you okay?” The brunette shakes her head and says, “N-none of your business…” and limps home. Helena closed her eyes at the door and rubbed her bruises. She stepped in. Nobody was still there. She stumbled upstairs and in to bed. She knew she’d be waiting for her tomorrow. Why try anything? Helena arrived at school, her eyes red from crying and her thick accent still intact. She sat at the side to the cafeteria to eat lunch, not wanting anyone to see her. As she swallowed the last of the sauerkraut she saw the same mousy blond girl stumble over to her. She sits down and pulls out an exquisite lunch of lobster stew. “H-how you get?” The brunette asks quietly to the other girl. The girl shrugs. “My father pretty much owns the school. He’s the chairman.” '' ''Helena watched as the blond ate her lunch quietly and politely. “What is your name?” The bruised girl asks to the rich. “Uh…” The blond girl shifted her legs together like she had to pee. “…Kotoko.” '' ''“Why you hang out with the mean girl?” “To protect my reputation.” She paused. “As the chairman’s daughter everyone thinks I’m some goody-two-shoes. I don’t want to be the Chairman’s Darling.” “You no better than her.” “At least I don’t abuse you until you’re bloody and raw.” The German reflects on this quickly as she scurries to her next class without a word. Helena sits on her bed and looks at her bruises. “I must be as weak as Sakurako says,” she said aloud. “If these bruises are really all mine.” It’s not like anyone would hear her anyways. Her father worked all day at minimum wage and her mother was in a cold grave back in Germany. She leans back on her bed to look at the ceiling. Her father always put work first while she had to fend for herself. Unlike Kotoko, she wanted to be her daddy’s darling. Her head lolls on the pavement while Sakurako kicks again. “Stupid!” she screeches! “You told the chairman what I’ve done, huh?” '' ''Helena sits up again and says, “He’s a good man.” “His daughter’s one of my friends.” “She only do it for her reputation.” “Shut up!” More kicks. She feels white noise burn in her ears. Like when her mother died and she was screaming her head off. Sakurako pants and glares at her. “You stupid, ignorant mutt.” She walks to her home, with a teacher father and an alive mother. Helena drags her own bloody ass home. Kotoko wasn’t with Sakurako this time. '' ''The blond was watching from the curb. Helena heaves the door open and sees her father standing in the doorway. He smiles weakly and takes her into his arms. “Mein liebling.” He says and looks at her. She’s sure he doesn’t mean it when he says it. “Where’d you get those bruises?” “I tripped” she lied. “Be more careful next time.” He takes a better look at her. “These look like the mark of a shoe sole. Are you sure you fell?” Helena doesn’t answer because she’s tearing her bedroom door open, crying. Helena sees Kotoko on the weekend. Not like she wanted to, she was walking around town to get a breath of fresh air and to get out of the lonely house. Kotoko sees her from around the curb. She waves to her and pulls on a man’s arm. He turns his violet eyes and screams. “Mon dieu!” He says, shielding his daughter. “Don’t touch her!” Helena, confused looks at Kotoko. Kotoko bows her head. “Why you afraid of me?” The blond man jumps energetically and points at her. “My daughter’s friend Sakurako told me you were beating kids up. She came home covered in dust yesterday!” A brown-haired boy (who was quite handsome to Helena, to be honest) came out and said “Saki told me you were a slut also. She said you were showing off your tits to all the dudes at school.” Helena assumes he is Kotoko’s brother. “But I told ''you ''she beat up me!” “I don’t believe you anymore.” The blond man pulls his children away from her and runs away. Helena runs home, her eyes burning with tears and her cheeks burning from embarrassment. Why did her father bring her to this hell? Helena pulls her arms around herself, sitting on her bed. “Who cares if some slut doesn’t live anymore?” She lies down on the bed. Her father isn’t home. Again. She walks down to the kitchen and picks up a knife. And she vents out her anger in cuts. One for being an idiot. One for being so weak. One for leaving Mother in Germany. One for listening to Kotoko. Blood drops off her arm and on to the floor. But she feels some sense of release and she feels alive for the first time. But it hurts. Sakurako is beating her up again as Kotoko watches. Finally, Sakurako pulls up Helena by the arm. “What’s this?” She asks as she sees the bandages. She flicks a bandage off causing her to groan in pain. “You’re cutting?” she asks again, her voice doesn’t contain any sympathy. “What an attention whore.” Sakurako drops her on the ground and walks away. Kotoko helps her up. “I’m sorry about my dad.” She whispers. Helena smacks her. “You are not any better than Sakurako.” '' ''Kotoko runs away, hurt, and Helena ends up at her front door again. She opens the door and her father still isn’t there. She gulps down her tears and grabs the knife again. But this isn’t enough. She wants to hurt more. Kotoko hears a ring at the doorbell. She opens the door and sees the brunette kicking her shoes together with the expression of a kicked puppy. “Your dad still not home?” “Yeah.” “Oh. You look beaten.” “I am, you bitch.” “I didn’t do anything!” “Why d-didn’t you stop ‘er?” “I told you. My reputation!” Helena’s face burns red. “Your father loves y-you! Why would you vant to change that!?” “I want to be more!” “I h-hope you enjoy being more when I die!” “You won’t die!” Helena doesn’t answer since she’s already stormed away. Helena arrives at school the next day, kicking the sand. She wears her mother’s necklace, a fancy one she in turn got from her mother. It had the Hungarian Kingdom’s coat of arms. A jewel was incrusted in the centre. '' ''Sakurako laughed. “I didn’t know you’d waste money on that junk!” Helena ignores her and keeps walking. “Hey, I’m talking to you! Asshole!” Helena grasps her necklace and keeps walking. '' ''Every class goes on with a dull noise. The teachers blab on and on about American history, American culture, and American crap. She sits alone in the cafeteria. Kotoko doesn’t even join her. At the end of the day Sakurako beats her up again. This time she kicks especially at her arms, where weeks’ worth of cuts were. Sakurako kicks her to the ground again and Kotoko watches. This time Kotoko doesn’t even look. Helena hated sympathy. And at the end of the day Helena realized she didn’t have to put up with this anymore. She remembers that she told Kotoko how much happier the blond would be if the German died. She wanted to show them all. She did. Helena’s toes are suspended in midair. They stick over the three-story high school building. The wind whistles in her ears. She is scared for just a moment. But when she sees the wall that Sakurako kicked her against she becomes brave. She’ll show them all. She feels her stomach lurch with the falling feeling as she tips over the school building and bends forward even more so she’ll land on her head. She feels like flying. The wind scrapes against her cuts and burns and stings them and makes them hurt so much. But she loves this hurting feeling. And everything went dark. (Excerpt from the Weston Weekly Newspaper) Junior Student Commits Suicide (By Akihiko Suoh, Senior) Helena Beilschmidt, 15, was found at the bottom of the west wing wall. There were large gashes on her head and it is finalized that she jumped off the roof. There will be a vigil in her honour hosted by Kotoko Suoh, 16. Helena emigrated from Germany to America a year ago. According to her father, Gilbert Beilschmidt, her mother Elizaveta died 5 years prior. She was being bullied by another junior student and was being alienated as well. Kotoko Suoh says her abuse was horrifying and graphic. Her bully also spread rumors about her being a prostitute to earn money for her minimum wage working father and that she beat up other students. Most students believed that this was not true, but never intervened. '' ''“A father knows these things”, her father states. “She and my wife wait at home. But not America.” He says he is going to move back to Germany with his brother and friend. “My daughter’s memory will haunt me forever.” This seems to be a lesson. Kotoko Suoh states through tears that she herself was a bystander and could have intervened. She says that the bystander is as bad as the bully. The school has started raising funds for a created charity to stop bullying. Shirts and bracelets will be purchased for 1$ a bracelet and 5$ a tee-shirt. '' ''Don’t be a bully, and don’t be a bystander either. Category:Rated M Category:Prose Category:Angst Category:Featured Category:Writing Category:Trigger Warning Category:Finished